Hyderabad: With an aim to check pilferage, the electricity department replaced old meters with double sealed infra-red meters in several parts of the city. Despite that, around 100 cases of theft have surfaced in the city in the last six months.
Skilled technicians, offering their services for around Rs 1000 per household, assuring that resetting will lower the electricity bills, are tampering with the meters to show lower reading.
“Although common users are unable to break the seal of the meters and tamper with them, certain technicians, who have the expertise to do so, are offering their services.
Several such cases in old city areas have come to our notice. These technicians are able break open the seal, insert instruments to reset the meter and replace the seal.
Suspecting something unusual about the sudden low reading, we sent such meters to the MRT labs and discovered the theft,” said P. Nagabhushanam, CI central circle, TS Transco vigilance cell.
“Officials had replaced regular meters with infrared ports placed at the transformers in several high theft prone areas like Asifnagar, Ranigunj, Golconda and Azamabad division, with the aim of reducing the tampering. However, it came to our notice recently that consumers are tampering with them with the help of expert technicians.
This is said to cost around Rs 800 to Rs 1000 and shows a lower reading. The technicians are constantly on the move and have remained unidentified so far,” added the official. He added that customers caught for tampering had been lured by these “experts”.
